What corporate America can't build: A sentence

What corporate America can't build: A sentence: "'E-mail has just erupted like a weed, and instead of considering what to say when they write, people now just let thoughts drool out onto the screen,' Hogan said."

This is so true. There seems to be some kind of mental block for people when they're writing email. Grammar? Who needs it. Spelling? "The spell checker didn't pick it up." Sentence structure? The list goes on. I'm no english expert but I generally know how to put together a fairly clear sentence. Spelling mistakes? Unacceptable; I'm horrified when I realize an email i sent has spelling errors because it usually just from lazy proofreading.
I think part of the problem comes from the fact that most people don't know how to type (I'm included there), and don't proofread (not me). Therefore they end up with garbled sentences and typos everywhere. If they had taken an extra minute before sending, they would be able to pick up many of the mistakes.
I'm glad companies are starting to get remedial help for people. The sad thing is that many of the people responsible for making those decisions don't have the skills to notice.

Penny Arcade

A very real commentary on the state of message board posts these days. Caution: May be offensive to some.
Penny Arcade

MSNBC - No same-sex marriage in Texas textbooks

I wonder if they're going to be able to fit the 10 Commandments into these books too? You know, because they should always be readily available, particularly when you're talking about evil things like sex . For all you homophobes, there's a new catch phrase; "asexual stealth phrases", that's a good one.
MSNBC - No same-sex marriage in Texas textbooks

Who do you hate more?

OK, so I have to admit that I'm a little happy that my prediction came true. I am also disappointed that it came true because like the rest of the world, I felt John Kerry was the lesser of two evils. What really disappoints me is the reaction by many of John Kerry's supporters (or GWB's haters). Here's the way I see it from outside:

GWB 51% - Lots of people hate him, but fewer than last time
Kerry 48% - More people think he would be even worse than GWB
Senate, House, Governor - All Republican majorities

To me this means one thing; the only thing most Americans dislike more than GWB is the Democratic party. So as far as I'm concerned, Democrats your job is to fix your party. Don't keep whining about all the "stupid rednecks" who voted for GWB. Look at why, with such a huge number of people that supposedly hate GWB and the Republicans, you not only couldn't win, but you lost ground. Use the energy you're currently directing toward the Republicans to build your party, to listen to what people really want, and to find someone who can actually lead the party to a victory.

I predict...

Disclaimer: Some information contained in the post may be deemed offensive. I am in no way trying to insult Americans or their intelligence. I have great respect for many Americans and I think that through the years as Canadians we have many legitimate reasons to be thankful of Americans (as do they of us, but that's for another post).

So why not get back into things with a bang? As a Canadian I watch with bemused interest the election proceedings down south. I don't have a real grasp of how it all works, and I think there are a lot of American's who don't either. That being said, I'm not afraid to make a prediction. George W. Bush by 3% or 4%, he may even win the popular vote. How could I possibly say this?
My theory is based on the fact that a lot of American's are just like GWB and like the "straight-shooting" style he has. I know that a lot of well-educated people would scream at me for this because they vehemently disagree. However, the majority of Americans are not well-educated people of above average intelligence. They are people who learn most of what they know from TV, they stick it out through hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods because they think they can outlast the weather.
I call them the "outwardly undecided". They like GWB but don't have the political knowledge to back-up their thoughts and therefore won't publicly disclose their feelings for fear of being ridiculed by someone "smarter" than they are. They have guns, they fear change (particularly when their church tells them it's bad), and they don't like to speak out. There are far more of these people in the USA than many Americans would like to admit and they have significant electoral power. They don't live in New York, Los Angles, Houston, or Miami and therefore the system for electing Presidents gives them a disproportionate amount of power.
The job of the democrats in this election has been to convince these people that two rich guys from the Northeast will be better than a "normal" guy who says what's on his mind and isn't afraid to start a war. An uphill battle to say the least, and one I don't think they are going to win.

Study: Firefox still gaining on Internet Explorer

Due to the fact that a number of users use a plugin that makes their Mozilla/Firefox browser appear to be IE, I think these numbers are probably a little high for IE. If the trend continues much longer, I predict that Microsoft will do an about face on not realeasing any more stand-alone versions of IE.
Study: Firefox still gaining on Internet Explorer

Ballmer cites 'facts' in Microsoft's battle against Linux - ZDNet UK News

On the vulnerability issue; Anyone who had to patch all their company's machines for the JPEG vulnerability last month know how MS deals with vulnerabilities.
And yes, I'm sure it is much less expensive to upgrade to a newer version of Windows than to do a complete changeover from Windows to Linux. Thanks for clearing that up though, Yankee Group.
Ballmer cites 'facts' in Microsoft's battle against Linux - ZDNet UK News

Another Crack at It.

It's a little cold, but I'm going to see if I can get this thing started again.

Stay tuned...

Saw "The Matrix Reloaded" yesterday. Very enjoyable flick I think. The first half was a little lame, too many pointless fights, the sex scene was totally contrived and out of context, and not enough mind twisting. The second half, however, totally sucked you in to get you to come back in November. I'm going to have to go back to this one first though so that I can totally understand what the Architect was talking about. The bathroom scene was hillarious (cool urinal), and the possible twist very close to the end was very thought provoking.

How's that for not giving away too much but still covering the whole movie? Make sure that you don't drink too much pop, or you'll have to pee after the first hour and a bit and miss the start of the good stuff.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a society where all the women wore skimpy white shirts and no bras? The guys do too, but for me the effect isn't the same.

Good movie, I highly recommend it, just don't expect it to be the same as the first one.

I turned 35 the other day...yup...35... It's amazing how it doesn't seem all that old anymore.

Oh, well. Decided that I should get back to this again, so here I am. I can hear the cheers around the world.

I was walking back to the office a little while ago, and I saw a guy talking to a girl. Nothing unusual about that, but he was doing the imaginary golf swing thing. You know, where someone holds their hands like they have a golf club and then they take a swing?
I've seen people do that before, but this time it sort of hit me that this is an absolutely rediculous thing to be doing. Usually people do things while they're talking, absentmindedly, without realizing that they're doing it. Like playing with keys, or the change in their pocket etc. Is this what golf-swing guy was doing? Is it that he golfs sooo much, that out of habit he just goes into golf-swing mode when his hands have nothing to do? If that's the case, my hands should just start typing an imaginary keyboard, because that the thing I do most. But they don't.
That leaves me with one conclusion; he was doing it to show off. Did it impress the girl? I hope not.

Woa, over a month since my last post! Forgive me ...

Cold here today -14C, and not a lot to say. Maybe my brain is frozen. However, I thought that I should at least post something so that all of you loyal readers (ha, ha, ha, I kill me) wouldn't stop coming by.

One of the people I work with has a poster in his office of G.W.B. with infamous quotes all over it. It got us to discussing the fact that Jean Chretien (that's Canada's Prime Minister), has probably just as many, or more, of these barely comprehendable quotes. Maybe I'll put together a comparison... I think they could have a good argument over who was the biggest moron.

Hmmm, what else... Oh yeah, I'm off to San Francisco in a couple of weeks. I'm going to the king of the acronyms conference - I'll be doing GIAC training at the SANS CDI to get a GCFW. My father-in-law (CEO of BAN - that's Ban Acronyms Now) would be shuddering at that sentence. I haven't been to San Francisco for years, so although I'll be spending 8 hours a day in a meeting room, I'm still looking forward to the trip.

That's it for now, things at work have been so crazy, and continue to be, that I may not post very regularly. I'll try to though.

I've been reading the historical novels of Michael and Jeff Shaara over the last few months. They are excellent books, and even if you aren't a history buff, you'll find them a great read.

One of the things I find amazing is how small the world really was back then. If someone was to write a movie about guys who fought side-by-side in a war (or more than one), only to end up in battles against each other a few years later I would find it a little contrived. But this happened a lot in the U.S. The civil war truly pitted best friends against each other.

Up here in Canada we learned some American history, but it really wasn't very interesting (although neither was Canadian). Reading it in this context, however, really brings it home. The way men thought about war was so different from today. War was nothing like it is today, or even was in the First and Second World wars. Thousands of men marching into the onslaught of musket fire and cannon, many knowing they'd be killed, and they just kept on going.

I have often thought about what kind of mindset you'd have to have in order to have the excitement of going off to war that was in soldiers even in the 2nd world war. It's such a foreign concept to North Americans today. I think for the most part, even professional soldiers don't have the enthusiasm that the volunteers did back in the 1940's and earlier in the wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. Maybe it's the media (I can always finger the media, but this time it's not bad necessarily). Back before the advent of T.V. and even radio, the only way people new about what was or had happened was through the stories of the survivors. It seems that most veterans are reluctant to talk about the bad things that happened. They're more comfortable talking about the epic battles, the triumphs, rather than the horrors and defeats. However, with the advent of movies and T.V. in particualr we can see first hand the horrors of war. We don't need to have verterans tell us how miserable the conditions were, we can see it. We don't need them to tell us how many men died, what it was like to have your buddy blown-up beside you. We've seen it all and more. If I was to volunteer for a war, I'd be going in with my eyes already open to the horror. It would have to be a pretty horrible threat to my family to make me go and do that. Back in the 1850's though, it was all about idealism. I guess war back then was much more like the religious wars of today. The belief in your cause (or hatred of the enemy's) is so strong that you'll do anything to advance or protect those beliefs.

I've thought a lot about this before and now that I've been writing I'll be thinking about it a lot more. The religion theme reminds me of another book I'm reading right now, The Salmon of Doubt, the posthumous collection of writings by Douglas Adams. He has some very interesting views on religion. I'll have to explore all this stuff a little more.

Well I have lots of things to talk about but no time to do it.

I received feedback! A reader of my American Idol post suggested I checkout the Idol thread on his site. Go to perotheus.com and click around. The link to the discussion groups is "on the right side column, way at the bottom under the webrings and stuff is a picture/link to a message board".

Vancouver was nice. After an hour and a half delay here in the snow we arrived to a sunny, warm day in Vancouver. Had a pound of muscles overlooking False Creek on Ganville Island. Oh yeah, did the Windows 2000 Gold Standard cert. too.

I'm going to try my darndest to write a few times this week.

Thought for the day:

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war
in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic
fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged
sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it
narrows the mind...And when the drums of war have
reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate
and the mind has closed, the leader will have no
need in seizing the rights of the citizenry.
Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded
with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights
unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know?
For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar"
- William Shakespeare

Busy week! I can't believe it's Thursday already.

I discovered last week that I've actually had visitors to this blog! I don't think they've ever come back...

Off to Vancouver tomorrow for the day. I'm going for a course and it's in Richmond. That means I may make the trip all the way to Vancouver and not smell or see the ocean. That'll be a bummer, but I'm going to try to get to the water for at least a few minutes.

I'm now working from home 3 mornings a week. It's to enable me to take my daughter to preschool. It's working out pretty well (and that reminds me of a topic for another post!) and I like it for the most part. I haven't even been tempted to slack off yet. We'll see though.

There I've updated, bye for now.

I'm not quite getting this blog everyday thing done, but I'm doing it a lot more frequently than before.

I noticed the other day that there's going to be an American Idol 2-hour special where everyone gets back together for one last show (bilk the advertisers out of more stupidly spent money). It started me thinking (again) about this whole show. I'm not one for reality shows so I'm probably biased on this anyway, but I have a couple of big questions regarding this show.

1. Who thought up the idea that an idol could be produced in this manner?
2. Why does the idol have to be a pop star?

I've just rewritten a huge chunk of this because I just looked up the definition of idol. You really do learn something new every day. What I learned today is that this show fits the definition of idol perfectly. Dictionary.com includes as one possible definiton "One that is adored, often blindly or excessively" and "Something visible but without substance". What could be a better definition of this show's product than this?

That still leaves the pop star part. Although I guess if there's anything that could be defined as "Something visible but without substance" it's many of today's pop stars. Maybe they'll have an athletic one next where they try to prove who can jump highest, swim farthest, and lift the most weight.

This was a pretty pointless post, although that's the point isn't it? Just write down my thoughts. Oh well, I still don't like reality TV, so I guess I'm not destined to buy into any of these things anyway.

Frost on the roofs of houses this morning. Yikes! Fall is really just around the corner isn't it?

Oops missed a day or two there...

When I started to wirte this post, it was going to be about how much I love fall. That changed as I love all the season's (I think that's why I love living here, where we actually get 4 different seasons, sometimes all in one day, but those are the risks. Anyway...), but I think what it is is that I love the transistions more than anything. September is the month where you can have a hot day where you're in shorts working in the yard. The next day might be chilly, but fresh. The grass is still green but the leaves are starting to change and so the contrast between the green grass and the yellow and red leaves is very striking. You can still have your window open at night, but by the morning, you'll be burried under the covers to ward off the early morning chill. It stays light late enough that you can still go for a daylight walk after dinner.

I don't understand how poeple can live in climates where nothing ever changes, it seems like it would become very monotonous after a while. To each his own.

I love this time of year.

Played flag football last night for the corporate challenge. What a blast! Played at the stadium on artificial turf. Ouch, that hurts! Won one, lost one, no finals for us. But it was a perfect night for football, tonight - not so much. It's going to take me a few days to recover, I feel a bit like I've been run over by a truck (I think one of the guys that I ran into was that big). Sunday is the goofy obstacle course. I'm glad I was able to prove to people that I have some athletic ability prior to making a fool of myslef in flippers sifting through a pile of sand.

Do you say Pop or Soda? Apparently this is a large enough debate that a guy from CalTech is doing a mapping study. He's doing an online survey of what term people use to describe carbonated beverages (non-alchoholic of course). Go here to add your self to the map. It's quite interesting how regional it is, who knew people referred to them as "coke"?

After seeing the effect of the Sept. 11 attacks on the WTC on the North American (and world I suppose) population, I have to wonder about countires where this happens all the time.

Obviously you would get somewhat desensitised to it, but it must be an awful stress in people's lives. Somewhere like Isreal or India (just 2 of many possible examples), at least once a week, sometimes much more often, there is a tragedy where innocent people have lost their lives because of someone elses narrow-minded hatred towards them.

How do these people deal with this? They go back to their "normal" lives within days of these kind of events. Maybe part of the reason for ongoing fights like these are that people become unaffected by the events, so the memories of particular tragedies don't stay in their minds. It's easy for me to say I remember many details of my day on Sept. 11, 2001, but how many Palestinians can say the same thing of attacks on them a year ago? I guess it could be a coping mechanism too, if they don't hang on to the memories their lives are less tragic.

I'm sure it's one of those things that you can't understand until you are in the situation. I hope I will never fully understand.

A few days ago, James Lileks talked about what it was that he liked about blogs versus the general media. One of those things was that he felt most bloggers write just for the sake of writing, where columninsts must satisfy many people and come up with topical things to write about. It's this slice-of-life sort of banality that he felt really set blogs apart from other forms of media. At least, I think I paraphrased well enough, you'll have to read it.

Anyway, my resaon for the long intro is that it made me realize that I don't write unless I have something really inportant to say. I should just write for the sake of writing. So from now on I resolve to write at least once a day whether I have anything brilliant to say or not (of course you're probably saying "He hasn't written anything brilliant yet...").

WIll I do it? We'll see.